4 ms·

Wikipedia's “moderate yet systematic” liberal citation bias

42 points by akolbe 4y ago

Domobran7 4y ago
I am not certain it is just "moderate", but it definitely exists.
pmfgpmfg 4y ago
[dead]
Manuel_D 4y ago
Wikipedia's bias is more prevalent on specific pages, or collections of topics. Many pages have zero or near zero bias. You're not going to have much bias on scientific topics like, say resonant structures. It's a lot more prone to bias on biographical topics, where senior editors can essentially suppress any negative coverage, or promote embellished facts about a person. Take a gander at the talk page of controversial articles, or more specifically the history of the talk page since talk pages themselves get pruned and censored.
- akolbe 4y ago
  I agree. However, I would add that there's an equal risk of biographies being slanted negatively. Cf. this week's article by Russ Baker: https://whowhatwhy.org/culture/why-we-should-be-wary-of-wikipedia/ https://whowhatwhy.org/culture/why-we-should-be-wary-of-wiki... Or this one about "revenge editing", published in Salon: https://www.salon.com/2013/05/17/revenge_ego_and_the_corruption_of_wikipedia/ https://www.salon.com/2013/05/17/revenge_ego_and_the_corrupt... As for bias, the thing with Wikipedia is that it can be incredibly patchy. Overall, in the English Wikipedia, the bias is undoubtedly slightly left of centre, but you may also have areas that swing the other way. Just yesterday, for example, a study appeared in The Journal of Holocaust Research alleging that Wikipedia's English-language coverage of Holocaust history is systematically distorted by right-wing Polish editors: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/25785648.2023.2168939 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/25785648.2023.2... Similarly there have been allegations that nationalists and historical revisionists hold sway in the Japanese Wikipedia: https://slate.com/technology/2021/03/japanese-wikipedia-misinformation-non-english-editions.html https://slate.com/technology/2021/03/japanese-wikipedia-misi... The Croatian Wikipedia was acknowledged by the Wikimedia Foundation itself to have been in the hand of right-wing extremists for about a decade: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Croatian_Wikipedia_Disinformation_Assessment-2021 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Croatian_Wikipedia_Disinform... Wikipedia is vast. The amount and direction of bias can vary from language to language, from article to article, even from paragraph to paragraph.
  - nhchris 4y ago
    Your post is incredibly enlightening. This study, that looked at 30 million citations, found left-wing bias, even after controlling for news media factual reliability. Yet media only (or mostly) report anecdotal examples of right-wing bias. I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. —Thomas Jefferson
    - akolbe 4y ago
      Yes, you could argue that the systematic left-wing bias should be a bigger story than the occasional right-wing excess. This said, there are frequent media stories about the left-wing bias as well. A Google search for Wikipedia "left-wing bias" provides rich pickings. It is noticeable that many of the outlets that run them are deemed "unreliable" by (English) Wikipedia. :/ (Love that quote.)
distantsounds 4y ago
[flagged]
- gigibec 4y ago
  [flagged]
- CMdH8 4y ago
  I’m not sure you’re serious or not. Just in case you are, this would be a horrible position to take on the concept of truth. It would make you unaware of the fallacy of your political side. No one side has truth on their side.
  - roundandround 4y ago
    Countries have political skews so it's entirely possible for truth to be heavily skewed conservative in the USSR and liberal in the USA. This is why the let's cover 2 points of view press is garbage. 2 points are 2 conservative war hawk dominated parties in the US.
  - mrguyorama 4y ago
    An article on global warming would be described as "leftist" in the US despite accurately reflecting reality. How else would you word the fact that american conservatives reject reality in a lot of cases? Remember, a significant amount of these conservatives openly believe the earth is 6000 years old and that geology is a satanic ploy to make people doubt god.
    - belorn 4y ago
      "Breaking down polarization ratings by ORES article topic areas, "we cannot see differences among macro topics". This "general trend" was also found for the top 10 (sub-)topic areas and the top 10 Wikiprojects, although with "minor shifts [...]. For example, the topic sports has a higher conservative-leaning fraction of citations, all the while maintaining a liberal-leaning skew. The WikiProjects Politics and India are more liberal-leaning than the average, instead. Taken together, these results confirm that the overall trend towards liberal political polarization is not specific to some areas of Wikipedia, but seems to be widespread across topics and WikiProjects."" In what way does your theory explain that sport articles should reflect a leftist world view?
drak0n1c 4y ago
The co-founder of Wikipedia, Larry Sanger, has written on this topic repeatedly. https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/ https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/ https://larrysanger.org/2022/03/why-neutrality/ https://larrysanger.org/2022/03/why-neutrality/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0P4Cf0UCwU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0P4Cf0UCwU
- orra 4y ago
  > https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/ https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/ Mmm, in this polemic, Larry Sanger complains that “[Wikipedians] live in a fantasy world of their own making.” Yet, in the same polemic, he believes conspiracy about the MMR vaccine, and asks for religious scripture to be treated as fact. He says he asks for neutrality, but perhaps he is being reductive in his definition of neutrality.
mansion7 4y ago
WikiMedia is known to have paid "edit-thons" to edit their site. These are grants given to organizations, primarily of a certain political bent, with the express purpose of creating and editing content. And when such grants are given out on this manner, it's hardly a surprise when the desired outcome is achieved.
ThrowawayTestr 4y ago
This is obvious if you've read an article on any even sightly controversial topic. Know Your Meme is less partisan.
human 4y ago
If you think you hold the truth, you don’t. If you think your position is unbiased, you’re wrong. We are all flawed and ignorant humans and recognizing it is the first step to enlightenment.
egberts1 4y ago
For a very long time since 2004, is a real struggle to get “Deaf” to be recognized as a culture on Wikipedia. But these Wikipedia authors seems hell-bent on medical approach and total ignorance, not to mention that Wikipedia wants their preferred but offensive “hearing-impaired” over our preferred “hard-of-hearing”. So, a bunch of us Deaf Wikipedians still got overridden by these “Liberal” moderators wearing pink/purple hair, multi-piercing and what nots. Even deleted my drafts under my User: folder without my permission on various Deaf things. (only Deaf History made the cut). I’ve. since stayed clear of Wikipedia and their progressive armies.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
askin4it 4y ago
Always a lot of drama at the Project Veritas article if you want to see their techniques in action.

42 points by akolbe 4y ago

Domobran7 4y ago

I am not certain it is just "moderate", but it definitely exists.

pmfgpmfg 4y ago

[dead]

Manuel_D 4y ago

Wikipedia's bias is more prevalent on specific pages, or collections of topics. Many pages have zero or near zero bias. You're not going to have much bias on scientific topics like, say resonant structures. It's a lot more prone to bias on biographical topics, where senior editors can essentially suppress any negative coverage, or promote embellished facts about a person. Take a gander at the talk page of controversial articles, or more specifically the history of the talk page since talk pages themselves get pruned and censored.

akolbe 4y ago
I agree. However, I would add that there's an equal risk of biographies being slanted negatively. Cf. this week's article by Russ Baker: https://whowhatwhy.org/culture/why-we-should-be-wary-of-wikipedia/ https://whowhatwhy.org/culture/why-we-should-be-wary-of-wiki... Or this one about "revenge editing", published in Salon: https://www.salon.com/2013/05/17/revenge_ego_and_the_corruption_of_wikipedia/ https://www.salon.com/2013/05/17/revenge_ego_and_the_corrupt... As for bias, the thing with Wikipedia is that it can be incredibly patchy. Overall, in the English Wikipedia, the bias is undoubtedly slightly left of centre, but you may also have areas that swing the other way. Just yesterday, for example, a study appeared in The Journal of Holocaust Research alleging that Wikipedia's English-language coverage of Holocaust history is systematically distorted by right-wing Polish editors: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/25785648.2023.2168939 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/25785648.2023.2... Similarly there have been allegations that nationalists and historical revisionists hold sway in the Japanese Wikipedia: https://slate.com/technology/2021/03/japanese-wikipedia-misinformation-non-english-editions.html https://slate.com/technology/2021/03/japanese-wikipedia-misi... The Croatian Wikipedia was acknowledged by the Wikimedia Foundation itself to have been in the hand of right-wing extremists for about a decade: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Croatian_Wikipedia_Disinformation_Assessment-2021 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Croatian_Wikipedia_Disinform... Wikipedia is vast. The amount and direction of bias can vary from language to language, from article to article, even from paragraph to paragraph.
- nhchris 4y ago
  Your post is incredibly enlightening. This study, that looked at 30 million citations, found left-wing bias, even after controlling for news media factual reliability. Yet media only (or mostly) report anecdotal examples of right-wing bias. I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods & errors. —Thomas Jefferson
  - akolbe 4y ago
    Yes, you could argue that the systematic left-wing bias should be a bigger story than the occasional right-wing excess. This said, there are frequent media stories about the left-wing bias as well. A Google search for Wikipedia "left-wing bias" provides rich pickings. It is noticeable that many of the outlets that run them are deemed "unreliable" by (English) Wikipedia. :/ (Love that quote.)

distantsounds 4y ago

[flagged]

gigibec 4y ago
[flagged]
CMdH8 4y ago
I’m not sure you’re serious or not. Just in case you are, this would be a horrible position to take on the concept of truth. It would make you unaware of the fallacy of your political side. No one side has truth on their side.
- roundandround 4y ago
  Countries have political skews so it's entirely possible for truth to be heavily skewed conservative in the USSR and liberal in the USA. This is why the let's cover 2 points of view press is garbage. 2 points are 2 conservative war hawk dominated parties in the US.
- mrguyorama 4y ago
  An article on global warming would be described as "leftist" in the US despite accurately reflecting reality. How else would you word the fact that american conservatives reject reality in a lot of cases? Remember, a significant amount of these conservatives openly believe the earth is 6000 years old and that geology is a satanic ploy to make people doubt god.
  - belorn 4y ago
    "Breaking down polarization ratings by ORES article topic areas, "we cannot see differences among macro topics". This "general trend" was also found for the top 10 (sub-)topic areas and the top 10 Wikiprojects, although with "minor shifts [...]. For example, the topic sports has a higher conservative-leaning fraction of citations, all the while maintaining a liberal-leaning skew. The WikiProjects Politics and India are more liberal-leaning than the average, instead. Taken together, these results confirm that the overall trend towards liberal political polarization is not specific to some areas of Wikipedia, but seems to be widespread across topics and WikiProjects."" In what way does your theory explain that sport articles should reflect a leftist world view?

drak0n1c 4y ago

The co-founder of Wikipedia, Larry Sanger, has written on this topic repeatedly. https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/ https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/ https://larrysanger.org/2022/03/why-neutrality/ https://larrysanger.org/2022/03/why-neutrality/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0P4Cf0UCwU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0P4Cf0UCwU

orra 4y ago
> https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/ https://larrysanger.org/2020/05/wikipedia-is-badly-biased/ Mmm, in this polemic, Larry Sanger complains that “[Wikipedians] live in a fantasy world of their own making.” Yet, in the same polemic, he believes conspiracy about the MMR vaccine, and asks for religious scripture to be treated as fact. He says he asks for neutrality, but perhaps he is being reductive in his definition of neutrality.

mansion7 4y ago

WikiMedia is known to have paid "edit-thons" to edit their site. These are grants given to organizations, primarily of a certain political bent, with the express purpose of creating and editing content. And when such grants are given out on this manner, it's hardly a surprise when the desired outcome is achieved.

ThrowawayTestr 4y ago

This is obvious if you've read an article on any even sightly controversial topic. Know Your Meme is less partisan.

human 4y ago

If you think you hold the truth, you don’t. If you think your position is unbiased, you’re wrong. We are all flawed and ignorant humans and recognizing it is the first step to enlightenment.

egberts1 4y ago

For a very long time since 2004, is a real struggle to get “Deaf” to be recognized as a culture on Wikipedia. But these Wikipedia authors seems hell-bent on medical approach and total ignorance, not to mention that Wikipedia wants their preferred but offensive “hearing-impaired” over our preferred “hard-of-hearing”. So, a bunch of us Deaf Wikipedians still got overridden by these “Liberal” moderators wearing pink/purple hair, multi-piercing and what nots. Even deleted my drafts under my User: folder without my permission on various Deaf things. (only Deaf History made the cut). I’ve. since stayed clear of Wikipedia and their progressive armies.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

askin4it 4y ago

Always a lot of drama at the Project Veritas article if you want to see their techniques in action.